'look on our divinest Symbol: on Jesus of Nazareth, and his Life, 'and his Biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has the human Thought not yet reached this is Christianity, and 'Christendom; a Symbol of quite perennial, infinite character; 'whose significance will ever demand to be anew inquired into, ' and anew made manifest.

'But, on the whole, as Time adds much to the sacredness of 'Symbols, so likewise in his progress he at length defaces, or even 'desecrates them; and Symbols, like all terrestrial Garments, wax 'old. Homer's Epos has not ceased to be true; yet it is no 'longer our Epos, but shines in the distance, if clearer and clearer, 'yet also smaller and smaller, like a receding Star. It needs a 'scientific telescope, it needs to be reinterpreted and artificially 'brought near us, before we can so much as know that it was a 'Sun. So likewise a day comes when the Runic Thor, with his 'Eddas, must withdraw into dimness; and many an African 'Mumbo-Jumbo, and Indian Pawaw be utterly abolished. For 'all things, even Celestial Luminaries, much more atmospheric 'meteors, have their rise, their culmination, their decline.'

'Small is this which thou tellest me, that the Royal Sceptre is 'but a piece of gilt wood; that the Pyx has become a most foolish 'box, and truly, as Ancient Pistol thought," of little price." A 'right Conjuror might I name thee, couldst thou conjure back 'into these wooden tools the divine virtue they once held.'

'Of this thing, however, be certain wouldst thou plant for 'Eternity, then plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, his 'Fantasy and Heart: wouldst thou plant for Year and Day, then 'plant into his shallow superficial faculties, his Self-love and 'Arithmetical Understanding, what will grow there. A Hierarch, 'therefore, and Pontiff of the World will we call him, the Poet ' and inspired Maker; who, Prometheus-like, can shape new Sym' bols, and bring new Fire from Heaven to fix it there. Such too 'will not always be wanting; neither perhaps now are. 'while, as the average of matter goes, we account him Legislator ' and wise who can so much as tell when a Symbol has grown old, ' and gently remove it.

Mean

'When, as the last English Coronation* was preparing,' con

* That of George IV.-ED.

cludes this wonderful Professor, I read in their Newspapers 'that the "Champion of England," he who has to offer battle to 'the Universe for his new King, had brought it so far that he 'could now "mount his horse with little assistance," I said to 'myself: Here also we have a Symbol well nigh superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters and rags ' of superannuated worn-out Symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) 'dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you; 'nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and 'perhaps produce suffocation.'

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CHAPTER IV.

HELOTAGE.

AT this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting, to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled Institute for the Repression of Population; which lies, dishonourably enough (with torn leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into the Bag Pisces. Not indeed for the sake of the Tract itself, which we admire little; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in Teufelsdröckh's hand, which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these may be in the right place here.

Into the Hofrath's Institute, with its extraordinary schemes, and machinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much as glance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple of Malthus; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost literally eats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the Hofrath; something like a fixed-idea; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted forms of Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual world, is there light; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open mouths opening wider and wider; a world to terminate by the frightfulest consummation; by its too dense inhabitants, famished into delirium, universally eating one another. To make air for himself in which strangulation, choking enough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath founds, or proposes to found, this Institute of his, as the best he can do. It is only with our Professor's comments thereon that we concern ourselves.

First, then, remark that Teufelsdröckh, as a speculative Radical, has his own notions about human dignity; that the Zähdarm palaces and courtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On the blank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract, we find the following indistinctly engrossed:

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'Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn Crafts'man that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the 'Earth, and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard 'Hand; crooked, coarse; wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning 'virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. Ven'erable too is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with 'its rude intelligence; for it is the face of a Man living manlike. 'Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated Brother! 'For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and 'fingers so deformed thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot 'fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee too 'lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrust'ed must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of 'Labour; and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. 'Yet toil on, toil on thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may; 'thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread.

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:

'A second man I honour, and still more highly: Him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, 'but the Bread of Life. Is not he too in his duty; endeavour'ing towards inward Harmony; revealing this by act, or by word, 'through all his outward endeavours, be they high or low? High'est of all, when his outward and his inward endeavour are one : 'when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman only, but 'inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers 'Heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, 'must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he 'have Light, have Guidance, Freedom, Immortality?—These two, 'in all their degrees, I honour: all else is chaff and dust, which 'let the wind blow whither it listeth.

'Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of 'man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer ' in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such 'now any where be met with. Such a one will take thee back to 'Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendour of Heaven spring 'forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light shining in 'great darkness.'

And again: 'It is not because of his toils that I lament for 'the poor we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a 'pastime. The poor is hungry and athirst; but for him also 'there is food and drink he is heavy-laden and weary; but for 'him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest; in his 'smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelopes him, and fit'ful glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn 'over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of 'heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him; but 'only, in the haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and In'dignation bear him company. Alas, while the Body stands so 'broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupified, 'almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a Breath of God; be'stowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded !—That 'there should one Man die Ignorant who had capacity for Know'ledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty 'times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The mis'erable fraction of Science which our united Mankind, in a wide 'Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all 'diligence, imparted to all?'

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Quite in an opposite strain is the following: The old Spartans 'had a wiser method; and went out and hunted down their He'lots, and speared and spitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, 'now after the invention of fire-arms, and standing armies, how 'much easier were such a hunt! Perhaps in the most thickly'peopled country, some three days annually might suffice to 'shoot all the able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated within 'the year. Let Governments think of this. The expense were 'trifling: nay, the very carcasses would pay it. Have them salt'ed and barrelled; could not you victual therewith, if not Army 'and Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, in workhouses and elsewhere, as enlightened Charity, dreading no evil of them, 'might see good to keep alive?'

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And yet,' writes he farther on, there must be something wrong. A full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from 'twenty to as high as two hundred Friedrichs d'or such is his